2009 was a real thug of a year. The sort that's been skulking in the shadows for a while - biding its time as it gets ready to really rough you up.
For most of us it appeared from its alleyway with ample warning, but still managed to chew us up and spit us out. For others, particularly if you happen to work in publishing, it probably just chewed you up.
2008's credit crunch seemingly evolved into 2009's salivating beast of a global recession in a heartbeat.
The New Year may have been all about hope and Obama, but in the end the only change for many was either of the “I'm sorry to have to tell you...” variety, or the stuff that you suddenly started counting to see if that dream of the Boot's Meal Deal could at last become a delicious reality.
But it's Christmas. Or maybe New Year if you've been having a How-Do holiday (shame on you). So, let's try and put the doom and gloom back in the crumpled wrapping paper, at least for a few minutes, and pull something positive out of the box.
How about...
The Good
All change for 2009?
For no reason other than the fact that we need a simple device to make this feature flow, we're going to inject a little bit of Sergio Leone into our (North) Western world. So, if your mental music player has been set to Ennio Morricone, we'll plunge into 2009's Good, Bad and Ugly.
Digital, as anyone with less wrinkles and more of a clue than this hack will tell you, is the place to be.
Economic uncertainty and a concomitant crisis of confidence made short of work of clients above the line budgets this year, which, unlike the staff over at IAS of late, were absolutely hammered.
However, for every million or so yanked out of TV or the regional press a plethora of new pennies was simply diverted off in to the digital channel, where, looking around, everything appeared to be pleasingly buoyant.
The digital agency scene is maturing quickly and agencies established and fresh-faced, networked and independent, are now vying for hegemony, particularly in Manchester.
Definitely a sector to watch in the coming year - expect some consolidation alongside the usual swarm of start-ups.
Regional press hasn't quite faired as well as digital in 2009. In fact, if you were in the Alan Pardew school of commentary, you could say it has been done a grave mischief of really quite nasty proportions (or words to that effect).
However, here in the North West there's been one publisher – brave or foolhardy, you decide – that's barrelled into the turbulent waters of local newspapers and swam, very much against the prevailing tide.
Straight talking Parker is taking the fight to 'the man' and, although not every How-Do commentator seems to believe him, making a modest profit from doing so, thank you very much. We salute his guts, entrepreneurial flair and the fact that he keeps telling us about his plans first. Go Stuart!
Speaking of guts and fighting, how about a warm round of applause for the BBC's Paresh Patel – How-Do's unquestionable hero of the year.
After half an hour of this relentless pursuit Patel turned on his assailants and swiftly dispatched them through the power of a smack in the face and a knee to 'the holiday money'.
Patel leaps into action
By the time the police arrived he was apparently foiling an armed robbery, saving a cat from a nearby tree and flying so fast round the world that he actually reversed time to undo some of history's most savage criminal acts.
Media observers will have been frustrated by the initially, ostensibly, slow movement of all things MCUK and, no doubt, pleased to see that developments have moved up a few gears since the appointment of Peter Salmon as the project's overall big cheese.
Sticking in the visual broadcast spectrum – if you still get the picture – the good news has been as elusive as Fred Talbot's fashion sense, but, if you click through enough reams of How-Doing, there is the odd bright spot to pick up on and peruse with those square eyes of yours.
As we're running out of room in 'the good' section – you've already moved on to 'the ugly' haven't you, you impatient, scandal-obsessed sods – we'll draw it to a close with a few more hats tipped in the direction of:
Manchester United and Manchester City – for demonstrating a seeming imperviousness to the recession-decimated milieu of sports marketing and sponsorship.
Every time an agency proudly unveils a solution that it believes will help repackage a (probably) regenerated area, help dismantle outdated preconceptions, empower the local populace and delight the ever shadowy hoards of 'stakeholders' that set the branding ball rolling... well, not to put to fine a point to it, the shit starts a flying.
Shagbands?
Witness your reaction to the hypnotically frenetic Burnley logo:
“An obscene waste of money.”
“Piece of unadulterated crap.”
“Looks like a load of shagbands.”
“Conceptually it's on shakier ground than the San Andreas Fault.”
“Poor, meaningless and generic.”
“Looks like someone dropped a lobster in the Hadron Collider.”
Or, in the words of one Mr Murray, it has “all the charm and eloquence of a Tourette's sufferer with his hand wedged in a blender.”
Comments that, we assume, did not form the central creative premise of the brief for said job.
On second thoughts maybe this should have been in the ugly section.
Trinity Mirror, Newsquest and MEN Regional Media showed an insatiable hunger for hogging the lion's share of the most damning headlines, making it easy to forget the cost cutting crews marauding through the ranks of publishing giants such as CN Group and Johnston Press.
For Trinity, Liverpool has been the regional epicentre of a burst of activity that has shaken, ripped up and utterly rocked the status quo (with more force that the titular group has managed since Paper Plane). To be fair this was initiated back in 2008, when a staggering 800 staff left the business, but, distressingly for those that thought it was time to hunker down and get on with it, the cuts have kept coming through 2009.
Under threat?
Of most concern to the increasingly vocal NUJ appears to be firm's attempts to “sabotage” their Liverpool titles (their words, not ours) by shifting the Echo's release on to the streets incrementally earlier in the day. Commentators contacting How-Do have been suggesting for some time now that this is part of a grand design to close the LDP, leaving the Echo as Trinity's sole daily paper for the city. Recent redundancies at the title will have done nothing to assuage staff fears.
While Trinity has at least been open with its plans Newsquest has been an impenetrable business fortress for us hacks trying to find out more about its plans for a sizeable stable of regional titles.
How-Do has been left to hear about cuts, office closures and human sacrifices to shareholders via disgruntled staff, meaning it can be difficult to confirm the veracity of some of the most outlandish rumours (we only have one source for the human sacrifices exclusive, and he's been a bit quiet of late).
Horrocks: high profile exit
Newsquest, can you please give us a contact that will actually speak to us, and the rest of the trade press, when we have a query? That way you can also disseminate good news... should you have any.
Although this does explain why the title has been so slow to appoint a new editorial captain, it leaves a huge number of questions, queries and general concerns amongst staff unanswered as we stumble headlong into 2010.
The knowledgeable souls on the How-Do comment board under said story highlight the chief issues at stake – namely: the amount of duplication in roles between the firms and therefore the scale of potential redundancies; TM's recent track record of cuts with its own regional titles; the future of Channel M; and what will now happen within the management structure of the groups.
Soon to be under new ownership?
It may be unfair to lump this development under 'bad' when it could (possibly) prove to be a positive move for many of the staff and, perhaps, the title itself, but the spectre of further cuts looming large makes the story's place in this enclosure inevitable.
What else? Well, there's plenty, but it does get kind of depressing.
City Talk's loud and proud 'voice of Liverpool' proclamation faded to a whisper, as adverse economic conditions “reduced interest from advertisers in experimenting with this new on-air opportunity.” Cue a format change and mumbled apologies to a number of exit-bound staff.
Cosgrove Hall, producer of much-loved classic children's programmes such as Dangermouse, shut the doors of its animated, iconic Chorlton base for the last time and then fizzled out into 'under review' status at parent firm ITV...
But its perhaps the people stories, the personal entries in the How-Do daily diary, that have imparted the worst news of 2009.
The loss to the industry of figures such as Tim Grundy, Phil Easton and Ian Craig well before their time, and Corrie's Maggie Jones, who, despite having a better innings on this mortal coil of ours, is sure to be missed by millions.
Festive glasses will no doubt be raised in their memories.
The Ugly
When we consider 'the ugly' there's one name that immediately springs to mind – that of Fergie, the Duchess of York (no slight intended on your flame haired beauty there m'lady).
For a sustained period this year Sarah Ferguson and the people of Wythenshawe proved to be the copy cows that How-Do simply refused to stop milking... even when the product was getting so rank as to be almost completely unpalatable.
Local Fergie protest
By now you'll have read about it plenty much enough to know the score, so here's the bite sized version:
But it gets mixed press and mixes the press up – are we all clear on the difference between social marketing and social media now – polarising opinion so we have group a) the adoring acolytes, and group b) the John Williams of this world.
The debate rolls ever onwards
Williams' weekly wrap back in July was a delightful diatribe damning Twitter and the increasing flock of communicators who feel compelled to tell you what they're going to cook themselves for their dinner.
His honesty sparked a conflagration of comments - many in support, most telling him to fax off back to the 80s – and perfectly encapsulated the wider industry debate associated with Twitter and its many peer products, namely: social media, is it a fad or is it the future?
Enough marketers and clients have invested their money, time and tweets into SM channels to suggest that the majority may be pitching their tents in the latter camp for now, but expect the impassioned debate to rage on well into 2010 and beyond.
John, drop us a tweet, or give us a good old poke, if you fancy getting involved again.
On the subject of raging debates, let's touch on online paywalls.
One of the media world's most vocal barons has been leading the charge on this front over the course of 2009, extolling the virtues and value of original content, and telling everyone that's prepared to listen that free online media channels are built on flawed and unsustainable foundations.
An army of worldwide observers will be watching his next move closely.
Including Rupert Murdoch.
Garner: shaving off the fluff
Now before he barrels round here all ruddy of cheek and throbbing of vein, can we just clarify that Gordo himself hasn't been corralled into the ugly section - it's the debate over his mould-breaking subs model for Manchester Confidential that qualifies, not the lovely Mr Mark Garner himself.
Whether users took offence at the fact that he ostensibly wrote off 80% of them as “fluff” (that's 80% of 320,000 folk offended then), or at the cost of signing up to get their Man Con fix, or even just at the fact that he was setting a precedent that was anathema to those used to gorging online for free, Garner's words stirred up a hornet's nest of frenzied commentary.
Some of it, we have to say, turned out to be pretty stinging criticism.
That said, Garner answered some, ignored others and just got his head down to the Heroic subs model that he appears to be gambling the future of the business on.
He is, he opined in his own inimitable vernacular, 'putting his balls on the table and taking a chance.'
Vorderman: fanatic following
Do yourself a favour and avert your eyes upwards if you see him out in Manchester this Christmas.
'Not much' we hear you respond, but for the clearly unhinged Roberts it was in fact a 'crime passionnel', justified completely by Warner's alleged treatment of former Countdown star Carol Vorderman, forced off the show courtesy of a '90% pay cut'.
“This is for fu**ing over Carol”, Roberts apparently said while taking his coldly calculated revenge... something we wager he himself has dreamt of doing on many an occasion.
There's plenty more in the ugly bucket to delve into – pay, or the lack of it, at The Darrener, constant comments over the 'lavish' distribution of public sector funds, the fall out between Peter Bourhill and Owen Oyston and so on and so on – but after spending another year in your delightful company we'd really rather end on a more positive note.
So, with the Christmas break beckoning and a glass of something fizzy brandished in your general direction, here's thanking you for your ever-mounting interest in the site throughout 2009 and wishing you all a fantastic festive season and continued health, business wealth and happiness in 2010.
How-Do will be putting its feet up from 23 December to 4 January. We look forward to seeing you all again next year.
Merry Christmas everyone!
The team at How-Do
What's been your favourite story of 2009? What issue has floated your boat, or really got your goat? Who are this year's heroes and zeroes?
Let us know your own personal highs and lows below...
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